


he will miss you

by baeconandeggs, carpark



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, farewell, highschool reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 21:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18819583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeconandeggs/pseuds/baeconandeggs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpark/pseuds/carpark
Summary: Baekhyun didn’t expect to find Chanyeol on that damned highschool reunion. However, as night went and he confronted his feelings, he found that he had always been looking for him.





	he will miss you

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: baeconandeggs/the mods is/are not the author/s of this story. Authors will be credited and tagged after reveals.** The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
>   
> 
> **Author's Note:** This is a story which deeply carries my feelings. I hope you will enjoy reading as much as I liked writing it.

_ Perhaps, I should have told how much I missed you when I saw you that night, sitting alone as the beer was pressed against your lips. Why, I don’t know why, I always have regrets to replenish, to untangle and feel sorry about. Are you going to remember how I cried in your car? Are you going to remember me, now that I have told you that I love you? _ __  
  
  
Baekhyun, couldn’t figure out, why he was clutched to the leather seat of the yellow taxi. The yellow taxi took him, where he was yet so reluctant to reach. However, those pestering calls that buzzed around his pocket and how Sehun’s whiny voice rung in his eardrums like an annoying alarm couldn’t really hold him tight under the dim light of his office cubicle. He should have discarded Sehun’s number down the drain when he had the chance to, since that could had only saved him from attending an overly cliche high-school reunion.   
  
“It is a high-school reunion. You should come-” Sehun nagged for the nth time among the three months he had started to talk to him after years of distance.   
  
“I hate you.” Was what Baekhyun replied until he couldn’t really anymore, other than giving up to Sehun’s useless claims of dragging him by his belt and tying him by the waist. Baekhyun didn’t actually believe Sehun but he was afraid that Sehun might present himself in front of Baekhyun’s door.   
  
Then that Baekhyun was shut inside the suffocating interior of the car, the reek of worn-out leather wafting under his nose while Smiths played in the background and he found himself regretting the very decision he made. Perhaps he should had known better. The taxi drove for a lengthy amount of seconds, for which he had lost count of the papers he could have finished among those, and lost himself along the pull of every strings of guitar. He wandered his eyes, behind the blurred glass of the car, which had droplets of rain as a faint print on it. He thought that it might had rained from where the taxi had come from.   
  
The streets were not packed as always, since it was only two hours to midnight. He searched for nothing in particular on that empty streets however his heart might have earned for that same red car to pass by. Years went by, but he still held on the thought that he might just pass by. It never did, Baekhyun never expected it to.   
  
When the car finally screeched to the stop, he paid some crunched up notes to the taxi driver. The trip had costed him some 10 dollar bills, but he couldn’t care really. He opened the car door so that he could breathe freely, as the hint of damped earth hit his nose. He closed his eyes, as he took it all in. It had been a while he had been there.   
  
The 24 hour diner where the supposed reunion was take place, had a shady exterior with half-lit neon sign, reflecting an epithet of ‘CAR PARK’ in bold. Baekhyun heaved, thinking if the taxi had left already and that he could just bail on the whole ordeal. As he was about to turn on his heels, he halted half-way, rolling his eyes and deemed giving his social anxiety up for the night.   
  
The door hinged open, the stagnant smell of beer hitting his nose as he strode inside. There were few civilians dispersed among the poky interior, the lamp lightly hung from the cramped corners of the ceiling, lightening the floor in dull blonde. Among the crowds, his eyes caught up a few faces which he had engraved in his mind, but others he barely remembered surfaced sometimes. There was Joonmyun, the student-council, whom he then remembered as the student-council turned a famous brand CEO. There was also Jongin, who slept during the classes and that didn’t really take him anywhere except running his family supermarket down at the suburbs. Of course, Sehun, he remembered him as the one who could actually fulfill the dream of what he wanted to be as a child :a model. It was not a high-end magazine he worked for; but the one he did for, fulfilled the crave that cramped his heart.   
  
Finally, a cough from Baekhyun turned heads a few, with Sehun’s eyes perking up almost immediately. Joonmyun climbed the stairs, noting his presence with a nod and escorted him down, muttering his greeting and questions about his whereabouts.   
  
“I told you he would come.” Sehun announced almost too excitedly and Baekhyun was still wary of talking, from the shyness that crept his cheeks to vermilion blobs of hue.   
  
“He did come.” Jongin sighed, his hand wrapped around a glass of some cocktail. He took a sip and continued, “I thought you wouldn’t be down for this type of gathering…”   
  
“I wasn't, really.” Baekhyun commented. “The work piled up on my desk is reminding me of that, every second.”   
  
Jongin nodded, and inclined his head towards the bar, which seemed empty except a few customers hunched over the marble top. “You know, there are quite some few drinks you can opt for.” he came close to his ear and whispered, “the drinks are quite some cheap stake so I suggest the beer is the more decent one.”   
  
Baekhyun nodded awkwardly and smiled. He stared longingly at the drink in Jongin’s grip, and nodded at himself, realising the drink that was sticking to the glass’s sides, was not indeed beer.Joonmyun was long gone from their sides, excusing himself for a business trip that was to be held the next day.   
  
“I am really sorry for abruptly leaving, but honestly I do not have any choice.” His cheekbones rose tightly, reaching the rim of his glasses that slid from his nose. Baekhyun took note of his saggy skin, that hinted the inevitable turn of time, the dark circles that seemed like holes drilled in his visage and hair almost thinning. It was no different of himself, the reflection of himself that he was used to encounter every morning.   
  
Sehun and Jongin were no different, however, the latter seemed to had gained weight evident from his swollen belly. But their faces, were no different from the last time he saw them, except the wrinkles that had seemed to appear on their skin like a plague.   
  
Joonmyun’s hand met Baekhyun’s as a soft gesture, as Baekhyun lightly shook it. He pursed his lips to a small smile and met Joonmyun’s eyes briefly.   
  
“It was really nice seeing you, Baekhyun. You know, we should meet up sometimes.”   
  
“Yes, sure. Whenever.” Baekhyun raised his eyebrows, and left Joonmyun’s hands empty. He wasn’t sure if he meant the words that he uttered. He guessed it was all out of , barely engaging in a social greetings the past years.   
  
“Whenever it is then.” Joonmyun left Jongin, Sehun and Baekhyun to reminisce about the days they were together, in front of the other school team, playing for the ball to reach the goalpost. Until everything broke apart in between them, the members leaving one by one, to reach different points, with different yet colourful ambitions. Baekhyun didn’t know how his heart cautiously missed those moments vanished in reels of time, until then that they were all gathered to piece it one by one.   
  
  
“I am going grab myself a drink.” Baekhyun piped in, interrupting their conversation to a stop. Sehun nodded, as he said that he would go to the others, and inform them about the dinner serving soon.   
  
Baekhyun walked towards the bar, and took a seat on the green vinyl chairs, from which the leather was partly scratched and the foam inside was bulging out. Although, being a bit jittery inside, he took a cautious seat and rested his arms against the cool surface of the marble top. With a click of his fingers, he gestured the waiter to take his order. The waiter, was a man adoring a black apron, with the badge enlightening his name, “Yukhei” under the dim bulbs above and his raven hair swiped glossily sideways. With doe eyes, and a wide stretched smile (which seemed too welcoming), asked,   
“Anything for you, sir?”   
  
“A blue lagoon would be perfect. Thank you.” Baekhyun said, as he thought a hint of vodka for en route to home, would not be that jeopardising. Moreover, he had came too long to be there.   
  
“A blue lagoon coming right away.” The waiter disappeared behind the counter, to juggle with liquids he didn't care to know the name of. He wandered his eyes, over the plethora glassed bottles of visible drinks swaying inside, arranged above some paraphernalia of other caps and cock screws. He cleared his throat,as he manoeuvred his eyes towards the person a seat or two away from him.   
  
It seemed too unreal, the coat hanging from his shoulders, the scarf wounded against his neck, the eyes drowsing upon the knuckles of his interlocked fist and his eyes that had seemed to never dissipate from Baekhyun’s memory. The visage and the contours that decorated it, was sewed in his heart and the dreams that never did let go of him. Baekhyun’s face went pale and his heart somersaulted in his chest muting his surroundings as the whirr of the coffee machine went blur against his eardrums.   
  
He was shaking, in his own walls that he had created. The haunting of the ghost that tailed him, was too real in front of him.   
  
“Here is your drink.” The waiter’s sudden intrusion, jolted him from his trance, as he averted his gaze from the man beside him to the blue drink.   
  
“Oh, right.” Baekhyun nervously smiled, as he gripped the glass in his hands.   
  
As Baekhyun pressed the straw against his lips, the tears stringing his eyes, slowly met the blue liquid inside the glass he gripped tight. It was too much for him; the imagination of his meeting that had come to a day like that. The liquid slowly engulfed his cavern in a bitter sweetness that he couldn’t comprehend strictly. It all tasted bland, as his fingers numbed against the condensing glass surface.   
  
He could sense the chair beside him shifting noisily and he knew, if he could urge a look at the person beside, everything he had grasped onto tightly would tear off pityingly. But yet, his neck craned, to meet the eyes, that seemed to grown old of the glitters, it had captured inside those irises. His heartstrings, broke one by one, as the tears he had managed to hold in, stayed afloat in his glassy eye brims.   
  
The person, whom he remembered, was someone who owned Baekhyun’s grown years in his grip unknowingly. The person whom he refused to forget, gripping into a foul hope that he would return someday, to take him in his arms, and kiss him goodnight. The person, who manoeuvred his dreams into a fond reminiscent; the ones which he couldn’t help but store in his mind, relieving every moment into a futile hope in his heart.   
  
He knew the ordeal in front of him was then not a dream, but a reality. He wished it was.   
  
The person named Chanyeol, was there, aimlessly staring at him.   
  
“Hey.” Chanyeol mumbled, smiling tautly before, signalling the waiter to grab him a beer.   
  
“Hi-hi.”Baekhyun scrambled on what to reply, because he almost didn’t believe what was unfolding in front of him.   
  
“How have you been?” Chanyeol asked, casually, as he averted his gaze from Baekhyun, settling on his calloused fingers. Baekhyun couldn’t help how those fingers brushed against his, when they were alone in that classroom, folding origami dolls. Where were those years all gone? Baekhyun didn’t know anymore.   
  
“Better than ever.” Baekhyun lied through his teeth. Being cooped in his cubicle, with pointless papers that were stacked on his table and the room that he returned to seemed too empty wasn’t the life he asked for, however, he could lie through it. He had managed to, all these years.   
  
Baekhyun, engaged in a conservation consisting of small talks, and tried to suppress the agitation that was itching his heart. He was quivering inside, because he missed him so much. Baekhyun settled for so many of the disgusting drinks, he had lost count. His head was hazy yet his heart continued to beat against all odds.   
  
“Did you…” Chanyeol heaved, and chugged his beer once before silently placing it against the chipped wooden table, “Did you actually like me during those days?”   
  
Baekhyun chuckled. He couldn’t believe he was dealing with his feeling right then, when it was just a small palpating moments during his college days that mustered him to confess to Chanyeol. It was a crush, a teenage fleet, that should had been erased 10 years ago, but it remained trapped because Baekhyun might had not been ready to let it go.   
  
“I confessed to you, didn’t I? Mind you, it was embarrassing.” Baekhyun lightly chuckled, as the words uttered were slurred with the alcohol threaded in his system. He remembered the day, as an episode of scorching sun rays reflecting on the floor, as he stayed hidden behind the walls, as Jongin and Sehun mustered to relay the message from Baekhyun to Chanyeol. His heated cheeks, the clamped palms squeezed together and the moisture that stuck his shirt against his body like a second skin. It seemed too foolish, then that he remembered.   
  
The teenage bandwagon of confessions, and the numerous heartbreaks, that was weighted under the books of calculus and science imagery.   
  
“That wasn’t embarrassing, it was kind of nice to get it from you. I mean, I never expected it, you know. However, I never got the chance to reach you.” Chanyeol said, his gaze was fixated on the half-devoured beer. Baekhyun had drunk plenty, but Chanyeol was still stuck on that same beer that he ordered from the beginning.   
  
“You had so much chances.” Baekhyun mumbled, his fingers circling the rim of the wine glass. Baekhyun’s feelings were eventually surfacing, as his expression went gray upon noticing the ring on Chanyeol’s fingers. The silver innocently glimmered, as Baekhyun acknowledged his life was still stuck on those years of teenage ordeals.   
  
Like the beer that was kept unfinished, under Chanyeol’s hands.   
  
“Baekhyun…” Chanyeol massaged his temples,”you ignored me from like the moment you confessed to me. I never knew if you still liked me after that. I assumed, it was-”   
  
“I am sorry. I couldn’t really deal with it. It was too overwhelming and I didn’t know what to do. I loved you, still.” Baekhyun was giving up everything, because he was still stuck on that road, waiting for a chance that was never supposed to come. He had built walls, unconsciously blocking the person he wanted to pursue.   
  
The brisk days of summer seemed to dull, as he reeled back his memories. He couldn’t remember his face anymore. The person that sat beside him, in complete silence was too far to reach by then.   
  
  
“From then, I found a girl I didn’t even like because I…” Chanyeol’s grip tightened, because he couldn’t relieve those times anymore. It was realisation, he couldn’t believe. “I loved you too. I looked at you smiling at others but when you looked at me, that expression was so cold that I was afraid that I would stop loving you. So…I ignored you too, helplessly.”   
  
Baekhyun buried his head in a burrow of his hands, where everything seemed dark. The sniffles of his own echoed in his ears, because he didn’t know that confrontation, would be so disheartening. He questioned, if he really wanted to meet him all those years.   
  
“You know, I waited for you. I waited for another chance, where I would let out my heart for you bravely but you never appeared. Among the crowds, on the streets…I don’t know freaking anywhere.”   
  
Baekhyun sobbed, the coat hung on his shoulders too heavy as he wanted to drift to a deep slumber, where dreams never seemed to end. The elongated seconds at the bar, with the muffled gossips of the classmates he didn’t know of and the man he wanted to embrace all those years, was a petty hurdle he couldn’t carry. He was tired.   
  
“I am here now. You can tell it to me now.” Chanyeol convinced, as if he was all ears to what Baekhyun had to say. But Baekhyun had nothing; the words stayed as a knot in his throat which he couldn’t gulp through with the multiple drinks he had drunk.   
  
“Just say something, anything is fine.” Chanyeol let his hand, rake through the brown locks of Baekhyun’s comfortingly, as the latter wiled under the darkness he had created for himself. Among the sobs, and the tears that trailed against Baekhyun’s chin, he had said something he shouldn't had said.   
  
“I love you.”   
  
  
Chanyeol wasn’t all ears, he didn’t want to listen to anything. His hands stopped kneading through the hairs, as the hands slowly removed itself to resettle on his laps, nails poking his cuticles. The silence was too heavy to keep and the bartender never returned with another drink for Baekhyun. Sehun tapped Baekhyun on his shoulders, and reminded him to join the dinner that was to be served. He was unfazed, seeing the dried tears on his cheeks as if it was expected, that the night would end up like that. Chanyeol was long gone, joining Jongin, in a laughter that seemed to forged.   
  
Baekhyun and Chanyeol sat in different booths, with each other glancing at each other ever so subtly. The girl beside Baekhyun, prodded him with questions that were unnecessary, and the food on the plate was too unappealing to eat, so the he only played around with the gravy before giving up.   
  
“I shall go. I have papers to complete, so I will only be wasting my time if I stay any longer. The last train leaves now, so…” Baekhyun carefully told Sehun, who was then blowing fumes of a cigarette into the air, resting his back against the island of the bar. He seemed disappointed, as he heaved a sigh, smashing the cigarette butt on the ashtray.   
  
“Yeah. Sure, it was nice seeing you.” Sehun mumbled, as he patted Baekhyun's shoulders. Jongin soon came by Sehun’s side, and embraced Baekhyun, rubbing his back. Jongin reeked of burnt cigarette and stingy alcohol but Baekhyun didn’t mind.   
  
“I hope we can meet again. Since, you are getting late, I won’t stall you anymore. Get going.” Baekhyun smiled, and thanked them with a promise of seeing them again. He didn’t if he would keep that promise but he hoped he would. As Baekhyun turned back, he was met with Chanyeol, staring down at him, his lips bit in.   
  
“Let me take you home. You’ll reach there quicker.”   
  
Baekhyun had no reason to turn him down, so he shrugged and exited the diner with Chanyeol tailing him close.   
  
As Baekhyun settled against the leather surface of the seat, he closed his eyes and breathed in. When he opened his eyes, the window was stained with dried rain and dried leaves rustled on top. Chanyeol entered the car soon enough, shutting the car door thud behind him. There was still begrudging silence served in between them, the radio pointlessly shuffled in the background as Baekhyun fixated his eyes at the car windows.   
  
The stretched car ride to the station, seemed so much to Baekhyun, being the last time they could allow themselves to see each other. It should be like that, because Baekhyun couldn’t hold himself back anymore. After years of waiting for him, the night like that, with rain still hanging on the air as tears crawled down his cheeks, would be enough to live a little more. The dreams should stop, then that he had confronted everything, broke all the expectations he had within.   
  
Baekhyun couldn’t control the tears that broke down, as he sighed, while the streets became shorter and the lights of the subway station were clearer. As he twisted his neck sideways, Chanyeol stoic face was illuminated under the streets lights that passed alternatively, as it hinted the shadows of his face. If Baekhyun wasn’t mistaken, the droplets of tears on Chanyeol’s cheeks were much visible, the quiver of his lips and tightened grip on the steering wheel, showcased all the reluctance he had too.   
  
“Do you love her? The one you are engaged to?” Baekhyun croaked, his throat dried and itchy. He wondered, what Chanyeol’s answer was, whether if he waited for him all those years like he did. If those exchanging gazes on the corridors, Chanyeol’s fingers wrapped around the other girl’s hands and the words he uttered that one afternoon, he pondered, if those were real.   
  
“I love her with all my heart.” Chanyeol said, and all those words were soon embossed on Baekhyun’s heart, like a lie. However, he was glad, he deemed. He was glad, at least he wouldn’t had to hope for something that was impossible. He wouldn’t had to look for red cars to pass by the streets, the person that was intimidatingly tall to pass by and those smile and fond looks to haunt him again.   
  
“I wonder if you have that red car still? Remember, we used to walk by the road beside our school until you reached your car and talk about stupid animations.” Baekhyun chuckled, gaining another smile from Chanyeol. The thick atmosphere was cut with a couple of small talks, and Baekhyun tried honestly, so that,the night would be a memory he continue with.   
  
“That red car,” Chanyeol paused, as he tried to scratch his memory, “I don’t even remember it clearly. Probably, dad sold it, after we bought a new car.”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
As the car screeched stopped, Baekhyun looked at his interlocked fingers resting on his lap. He inched over the gear in between them, and grazed Chanyeol’s cheeks with his lips. He whispered, what he had been wanting to say the whole night. No, it wasn’t only that night, but the years he waited, as the others moved on without looking back.   
  
“I missed you.”   
  
The car was shut behind him, as the cold autumn air blew his hair along the wind. He shivered, as tears dried against his skin, like a dirty stain. When he cut his subway tickets, he wanted to look back, if Chanyeol was running behind him, if he wanted to stay back. If he had something to say, but Chanyeol never did.   
  
As Baekhyun sat on the iron bench waiting for the subway, he wondered if Chanyeol had ever waited for him like he had. Perhaps he didn’t. Of course, he didn’t.   
  
  
_  
_ __ I wonder how you are doing these days? The last time, I saw you was at the graduation. You looked at me ever so slightly, but I noticed it, since I was looking at you too. I wonder where we went wrong. Where I went wrong? I think I shouldn’t have ignored you then. It was my fault, I’m sorry. But I didn’t know how I could confront it to you, and the next thing I knew, you were there, beside another girl. I am sorry that I could not tell how much I loved you, love you now. I hope we can meet again soon so that I can tell you how I missed you.

 


End file.
